Name: Dominick DiMercurio

Internship, Co-op or Research Site: UMBC Review

Major(s)/Minor(s): Biological Sciences

Expected Graduation Year: May 2015

Briefly describe your internship, co-op, research, or service- learning opportunity, including your day-to-day tasks, responsibilities, and assignments.

My work with the UMBC Review involves a variety of tasks from contacting off-campus reviewers to editing student research papers. I meet with the other editors and our faculty advisor weekly in order to discuss the many tasks that we have ahead of us so that we can eventually publish the journal in time.

What have you enjoyed the most about your position or organization/company?

I have enjoyed meeting new people through this organization. I never knew how many people it took to create a student research journal. First, you have the hard-working student authors and their experienced faculty mentors. Then you have the Office of Undergraduate Education whose support makes the journal possible, in particular Janet McGlynn, her assistant Devon Fick, and Michael Mower, the website technician. On the editing team, our faculty advisor Dr. McDonough has been an invaluable guide to the other editors (Gagan Singh and Vanessa Rueda) and myself. Past editors like Morgan Madeira and future editor hirees also play a pivotal role in our success, as they provide their own perspectives. Meanwhile, the graphics design team has two student designers (Morgan Mantell and Daniel Grove) and Dr. Abrahams is their mentor. When you add in the anonymous contribution of the off-campus Reviewers, the financial contributions from the Vice Provost and up, and the countless contacts of professors who encourage their students to submit to the Review, you have a long, long list of names who are all linked to just one year's edition of the Review. I would like to thank each and every one of them for their superb support and excellent efforts.

What have you gained from your experience that you could not have gained from another opportunity?

I have gained an immense appreciation for the publishing process. First, a student author works diligently with their faculty mentor to create a worthy research paper. Those papers that we select then get sent to professional researchers in the field who critique it on a more technical level. We then spend countless hours working with the authors and the graphic designers to make appropriate edits, format figures, and perfect the overall journal. A year's worth of hard work on everyone's end goes to making it possible for students, faculty, and even President Hrabowski himself can hold in their hands a book that represents a showcase of the amazing research performed on our campus. It is both humbling and intimidating.

What advice would you give to another student who is seeking an internship or similar experience?

Com. Mun. I. Ca. Tion. That cannot be stressed enough. Many simple mistakes could have been avoided if there were ample communication between all parties involved and if no one was left uncertain about how to proceed next. Ask many questions or else you will never have any answers. Don't be afraid to divulge your problems to your co-workers or else you will never know if they have possible solutions. Make sure there are as many channels of communication open as possible. Otherwise everyone might spend an overwhelming amount of time trying to reinvent the wheel when there was already an easier but unspoken solution all along.

How do you see your experience as meaningful? This might involve skills you’ve gained, information you’ve learned, mentors you’ve connected with, or projects you’ve completed.

I will one day be a professional researcher myself, and knowing the process that papers must go through to be published will certainly provide me an insight on how to create noteworthy research papers and how to help others avoid the problems that I have encountered during this internship. Beyond that, I have gained many important useful experiences, such as learning how to advertise effectively, working with various groups of people, and fostering connections to research professors on campus who I might have not otherwise met.

Please provide a short quote about what you liked most about your position / earning internship credit / the internship placement process.

Over the years, UMBC has offered me many research opportunities, both in the lab and behind the scenes, and for this I am very grateful.